Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 178:712 (Oct 2021)
Article: Look At The Behemoth, Which I Made Along With You
Author: Paul J. N. Lawrence

BSac 178:712 (October-December 2021) p. 398

Look At The Behemoth, Which I Made Along With You

Paul J. N. Lawrence,

Brian D. Thomas,

and

Stephen Taylor

Paul J. N. Lawrence is a translation consultant with SIL International. Brian D. Thomas is a research scientist with the Institute for Creation Research. Stephen Taylor is research professor at the University of Liverpool, Liverpool, England.

Abstract

This article argues that the behemoth of Job 40:15–24 is a sauropod dinosaur by analyzing its description in the Masoretic text, Latin Vulgate, and Septuagint. We offer our own translations and evaluate the differences between each version. Our multidisciplinary approach considers the textual evidence arising from the description in the biblical account as well as recent fossil evidence.

Introduction

The vivid description of a land animal in Job 40:15–24 has prompted discussion and debate for centuries. The most common interpretation of behemoth by commentators is that the verses describe a hippopotamus or elephant. Writing in 1706, Matthew Henry is typical of such commentators:

Behemoth signifies beasts in general but must here be meant of some one particular species. Some understand it of the bull; others of an amphibious animal, well known (they say) in Egypt, called the river-horse (hippopotamus), living among the fish in the river Nile, but coming out to feed upon the earth. But I confess I see no reason to depart from the ancient and most generally received opinion, that it is the elephant that is here described.1

However, it should be noted that Hebrew has a word for elephant embedded in the term for ivory (שֶׁנְהַבִּים; 1 Kgs 10:22; 2 Chr 9:21),

BSac 178:712 (October-December 2021) p. 399

which literally means “tooth of elephants.” The component hab can be compared with the Egyptian ’bw “elephant.”

Writing in 1832, Clarke suggested that the animal Job described was a now extinct animal such as a mammoth.2 Had news of the discovery of the first aquatic reptile fossil of modern times—made just six years before by the Anning family in Lyme Regis in Dorset, England—given rise to this view?

Other modern scholars have also identified behemoth with known creatur...